I understand that 擬音語 (ぎおんご) imitate sounds, like どきどき imitates a heartbeat. So, if these onomatopoeia don't have roots I wouldn't be at all surprised.
But where do 擬態語 (ぎたいご) come from? Do いらいら (to ...

I observed in drama and anime (being outside Japan, those are my only ways of keeping in touch with spoken 日本語) that elder people sometimes say お出で to younger people when they want to say something ...

A few years ago I was told by a Japanese friend "社会の窓" (shakai no mado).
It was explained after some giggling that this is what is said to a man who has inadvertently left his fly open, and that it ...

I am particularly interested in the phrase 「水色時代」. Did it come from the old manga that used the phrase as its title, or has the phrase been carrying that particular cultural connotation long before ...

I know that "わさび" 'wasabi' can also be written using kanji as "山葵" and that these two characters mean respectively "mountain" and "hollyhock", but hollyhock doesn't seem at first glance to be related.
...

According to Denshi Jisho, いい and よい share the same kanji, and that both roughly mean "good". Why are there two different pronunciations despite the similarity, and what are some ways to figure out ...

As far as I know, 「同じ」 {onaji} is not a 形容詞 {keiyoushi} (-i adjective) so how does it become 「同じく」 {onajiku}? Or does {onajiku} not come from {onaji}?
Also, are there any other non i-adjectives that ...

Recently a friend of mine threw the term 意味くじピーマン (imi kuji pi-man) into a story she was telling, and it totally threw me off. At first I thought, because I wasn't sure how to parse the くじ part, it ...